Neil Pickford - It’s the end of the world as we know it

I have never really been one for New Year resolutions, but I am going to try really hard to enjoy 2012 the best I can.

There are many reasons why we should be looking forward to the next 12 months.

The Olympics, while not quite the inclusive festival of sport that the organisers are purporting it to be, will be a fantastic spectacle.

If, like me, you failed to get tickets to any of the events you will probably still be in the best seat in the house, which is channel-surfing in front of your television.

In what will be a great summer of sport we also have the England football team’s attempt to throw off the shackles of previous humiliations and actually challenge for glory in Euro 2012, and Andy Murray’s latest bid to become a tennis legend at Wimbledon to look forward to.

But, be warned, make sure you enjoy yourself between now and December 21, because the world is going to end.

Or so says the Mayan calendar.

Scenarios suggested for the end of the world include the arrival of the next solar maximum, or Earth’s collision with a black hole, passing asteroid or a planet called Nibiru.

Personally, I am pretty confident that we will all still be here on December 22 and agree with the many scholars from various disciplines who have dismissed the idea of such cataclysmic events occurring in 2012.

My friends at Wikipedia state that even professional Mayanist scholars do not believe the predictions of impending doom.

More importantly, astronomers and other scientists have rejected the proposed events as pseudo-science, stating that they are contradicted by simple astronomical observations.

But, although I confidently predict that the world will not end on December 21, why don’t we pretend it will and enjoy what we can this year?

It might be tough with all the doom and gloom surrounding the economy, but, as Monty Python once so rightly said:

“Some things in life are bad,

“They can really make you mad.

“Other things just make you swear and curse.

“When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,

“Don’t grumble, give a whistle,

“And this’ll help things turn out for the best, and ...

“Always look on the bright side of life.”

One word of advice though, don’t watch the film 2012 – it really is a disaster of a movie.